Last night Kyle Wellwood was eager to get himself onto the highlight packages, but unfortunately for him, an NHL period is only 20 minutes in length, one second short of the 20:01 he needed in order to record this season’s finest goal.

Trailing 2-1 with less than 10 seconds to go in the game, the Canucks’ center took a pass in his own end, picked up speed through the neutral zone, turned Oilers’ defender Tom Gilbert inside out, and slid the puck by Nikolai Khabibulin for the goal. Only problem was time had run out just before the puck crossed the line.

They say that hockey can be a game of inches, but in this instance it was a game of seconds, leaving Wellwood short by less than one.